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The Talented Mr. Ripley Paperback – June 17, 2008

by Patricia Highsmith (Author)
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7,337 ratings
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An American classic and the inspiration for the new Netflix series.

It’s here, in the first volume of Patricia Highsmith’s five-book Ripley series, that we are introduced to the suave Tom Ripley, a young striver seeking to leave behind his past as an orphan bullied for being a “sissy.” Newly arrived in the heady world of Manhattan, Ripley meets a wealthy industrialist who hires him to bring his playboy son, Dickie Greenleaf, back from gallivanting in Italy. Soon Ripley’s fascination with Dickie’s debonair lifestyle turns obsessive as he finds himself enraged by Dickie’s ambivalent affections for Marge, a charming American dilettante, and Ripley begins a deadly game. “Sinister and strangely alluring” (Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly) The Talented Mr. Ripley serves as an unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving―and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche―as ever.

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Previous page
  1. Book 1 of 5
    Ripley
  2. Print length
    288 pages
  3. Language
    English
  4. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  5. Publication date
    June 17, 2008
  6. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  7. ISBN-10
    0393332144
  8. ISBN-13
    978-0393332148
  9. See all details
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  1. If you wanted to be cheerful, or melancholic, or wistful, or thoughtful, or courteous, you simply had to act those things with every gesture.
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  2. His stories were good because he imagined them intensely, so intensely that he came to believe them.
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From the Publisher

Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr. Ripley Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Ground Patricia Highsmith - Ripley's Game Patricia Highsmith - The Boy Who Followed Ripley Patricia Highsmith - Ripley Under Water
The Talented Mr. Ripley (Book 1) Ripley Under Ground (Book 2) Ripley's Game (Book 3) The Boy Who Followed Ripley (Book 4) Ripley Under Water (Book 5)
Customer Reviews
4.3 out of 5 stars
7,337
4.0 out of 5 stars
1,581
4.2 out of 5 stars
1,025
4.0 out of 5 stars
811
4.2 out of 5 stars
614
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The unforgettable introduction to this smooth confidence man, whose talent for self-invention is as unnerving—and unnervingly revealing of the American psyche—as ever. Ensconced on a French estate with a wealthy wife, a world-class art collection, and a past to hide, Ripley is threatened with exposure when an art forgery goes awry. Ripley relishes the opportunity to simultaneously repay an insult and help a friend commit a crime―and escape the doldrums of his idyllic retirement. Highsmith explores Ripley's bizarrely paternal relationship with a troubled young runaway, whose abduction draws them into Berlin's seamy underworld. Ripley is confronted by a snooping American couple obsessed with the disappearance of an art collector who visited Ripley years before.
"The most sinister and strangely alluring quintet the crime-fiction genre has ever produced." —Entertainment Weekly "He's charming and literate, and a monster. It's insidious, the way Highsmith seduces us into identifying with [Tom Ripley]." —Roger Ebert "Wicked and entertaining, like all [Highsmith's] books." —Peter Swanson, CrimeReads "Highsmith skews your sense of literary justice, [tilting] your internal scales of right and wrong." —Cleveland Plain Dealer "[S]uch a wickedly attractive figure…it's always a treat to pass a few hours in [Tom Ripley's] company." —Michael Dirda, New York Review of Books

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Talented Mr. Ripley is a standard-bearer, indelibly woven into the fabric of contemporary crime fiction."
― Sarah Weinman, New York Times

"[A] masterwork of American noir.…Scene by masterful scene, sentence by sentence, with each disturbing thought and memory, Highsmith reveals how Ripley's psyche veers out of bounds, a slow drip punctuated by shocking jumps."
― Carole V. Bell, NPR

"The most sinister and strangely alluring quintet the crime-fiction genre has ever produced."
― Mark Harris, Entertainment Weekly

"I devoured [The Talented Mr. Ripley] and didn’t want it to end. I had to ration myself to a couple of pages a day."
― Judi Dench, New York Times

"The particular subversive thrill of this novel is that the reader inevitably begins to associate with, and root for, the sociopathic Tom. The other notable pleasure, one that is shared by the four sequels that Highsmith wrote (the series is sometimes called the Ripliad), is the way the writing immerses you in the details of mid-century travel. Gin at lunchtime, cafes in the sunlight, lives conducted through letter-writing: all a lovely backdrop to a tale of murder."
― Peter Swanson, The Guardian

"In the same way that Vince Gilligan made Breaking Bad's Walter White an awful person that I took a guilty pleasure in rooting for, Highsmith made the detestable Tom Ripley an intriguing character that I hoped would get away with his crimes."
― Mark Frauenfelder, BoingBoing

"[A] riveting story that examines identity, ambition, sexuality, and a few different forms of love."
― Chris Pavone, New York Times best-selling author of Two Nights in Lisbon

"[Highsmith] forces us to re-evaluate the lines between reason and madness, normal and abnormal, while goading us into sharing her treacherous hero's point of view."
― Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"The brilliance of Highsmith's conception of Tom Ripley was her ability to keep the heroic and demonic American dreamer in balance in the same protagonist―thus keeping us on his side well after his behavior becomes far more sociopathic than that of a con man like Gatsby."
― Frank Rich, New York Times Magazine

"Mesmerizing...a Ripley novel is not to be safely recommended to the weak-minded or impressionable."
― Washington Post

"[Highsmith] has created a world of her own―a world claustrophobic and irrational which we enter each time with a sense of personal danger."
― Graham Greene

"[Tom Ripley] is as appalling a protagonist as any mystery writer has ever created."
― Newsday

"Murder, in Patricia Highsmith's hands, is made to occur almost as casually as the bumping of a fender or a bout of food poisoning. This downplaying of the dramatic... has been much praised, as has the ordinariness of the details with which she depicts the daily lives and mental processes of her psychopaths. Both undoubtedly contribute to the domestication of crime in her fiction, thereby implicating the reader further in the sordid fantasy that is being worked out."
― Robert Towers, New York Review of Books

"Savage in the way of Rabelais or Swift."
― Joyce Carol Oates, New York Review of Books

"For eliciting the menace that lurks in familiar surroundings, there's no one like Patricia Highsmith."
― Time

"Highsmith's subversive touch is in making the reader complicit with Ripley's cold logic."
― Daily Telegraph (UK)

About the Author

Patricia Highsmith (1921–1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (June 17, 2008)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393332144
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393332148
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 7,337 ratings

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Patricia Highsmith

Patricia Highsmith

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Patricia Highsmith (1921-1995) was the author of more than twenty novels, including Strangers on a Train, The Price of Salt and The Talented Mr. Ripley, as well as numerous short stories.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
7,337 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Kindle Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Good read with lots of detail
Reviewed in the United States on April 29, 2024
Verified Purchase
I have enjoyed the movies and TV series based upon these books, and decided to read the books themselves.
I have not been disappointed
The best part is that the details in the book make many things more clear that either the movies or the series did.
Good book. A. Well-done
2 people found this helpful
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MJ
4.0 out of 5 stars quirky thriller
Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2015
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This is a pretty enjoyable book.I decided to read after rewatching the 1999 movie recently when it was on HBO. I haven't read anything by Patricia Highsmith before, so I don't know if this is overall typical of her style but it is kind of an eccentric read - like reading a murder mystery totally from the POV of the criminal who is completely honest and unrepentant to the reader. It was a bit drier than the movie in tone and the other characters are much less fleshed out and only exist through Ripley's perspective on them. I don't want to give too many spoilers for those unfamiliar with the book and movie, but Tom Ripley is a very odd character and it is his POV throughout the story. At times sharply observant and other times careless, sometimes conscientious but other times coldly homicidal, Tom Ripley the con man both charms and creeps people out throughout the novel. The writing is deceptively simple and tells the story with a quickness in pace and clarity that is admirable. The novel moved quickly and kept me interested throughout, even though I knew a lot of what would happen based on the movie. I am not sure I would have liked it so much if I hadn't watched the movie first though, as part of the fun was comparing the differences between the two. I have a lot of thoughts on Tom's sexuality (or lack thereof?) and how it was portrayed in the book vs movie and how differently that might happen today if the book was written again, but that is too complicated and time-requiring for an amazon book review.
22 people found this helpful
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Claude Avary
5.0 out of 5 stars Superb noir portrayal of an immoral, brilliant man
Reviewed in the United States on June 27, 2004
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Patricia Highsmith (who died in 1995) wrote many novels of psychological suspense and high literary quality, but she is only starting to achieve the acclaim she richly deserves. The 1999 movie version of "The Talented Mr. Ripley" helped restore her most famous novel to the spotlight, despite the uneven quality of the film itself. This 1955 book remains Highsmith's most stunning work, and it ranks high among classic noir literature and psychological studies.
Like some other noir classics (such as Jim Thompson's "The Killer inside Me" and Ira Levin's "A Kiss before Dying"), "The Talented Mr. Ripley" is written from the point-of-view of an amoral character who finds that murder is merely another tool to achieve his ends. Highsmith crafts one of the most convincing and sympathetic psychotics ever written in the character of young Tom Ripley. Ripley is a low-level con-man with anti-social tendencies and a lust for living the good life that he's been denied. When the rich father of Dickie Greenleaf, an old acquaintance of Tom's, asks Tom if he'll travel to Italy to convince his wayward son to come back to the U.S., he takes the job. In the sunny romance of Italy, Tom finds himself becoming friends with Dickie. But the friendship changes to envy -- Tom Ripley will do anything if he can just HAVE Dickie Greenleaf's lifetstyle...or even better, BECOME Dickie Greenleaf. Tom gets himself enmeshed in an increasing web of murder and fear, always trying to stay one step ahead of a scheme that seems to be constantly collapsing behind him.
What is so amazing about Highsmith's achievement in this novel is that she makes the reader root for Tom Ripley, despite his superficialty and complete lack of scruples. Tom's goals (but not methods) are ones most readers can understand: easy luxury, affluences, respect, nights in European clubs, days relaxing in cafés. And when his plans start to fall apart and threaten to consume him, the reader wants him to succeed because he has such ambitions, and the fear he feels of getting caught is heartbreakingly real. Watching Tom cleverly connive his way out of one difficultly after another keeps the reader turning the pages, and Highsmith's superb literary style paints a detailed portrait of Southern Europe more appealing than any travelogue.
If you've seen the film, understand that you're only getting the surface of Tom Ripley. The book has the luxury of diving right into his mind -- and it's an unsettling and fascinating place to be. You won't forget the time you'll spend with "The Talented Mr. Ripley."
12 people found this helpful
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Daniel Gamboa
5.0 out of 5 stars The Talented Ms. Highsmith
Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2016
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I doubt that I will ever like another antiheroe as much as Tom Ripley. Maybe Dorian Gray? Almost.

Tom Ripley is sent to Europe by Mr. Greenleaf to bring his son, "Dickie", back to the United States. Tom is a nobody who is bedazzled by Dickie's rich and bohemian lifestyle once he meets him in Southern Italy. Tom becomes Dickie's friend, and everything seems fine until Tom decides he wants to be more than his friend.

As in the "Picture of Dorian Gray", you will not learn life lessons or come out as a better person from reading "The Talented Mr. Ripley", and that is why I like him: he is a real character, like there are so many among us, who also deserves to be the star of books. Why is he one of my favorite characters in literature?

“I can’t make up my mind whether I like men or women,” he jokes, “so I’m thinking of giving them both up.”

“They were not friends. They didn't know each other. It struck Tom like a horrible truth, true for all time, true for the people he had known in the past and for those he would know in the future: each had stood and would stand before him, and he would know time and time again that he would never know them, and the worst was that there would always be the illusion, for a time, that he did know them, and that he and they were completely in harmony and alike. For an instant the wordless shock of his realization seemed more than he could bear.”

"He loved possessions, not masses of them, but a select few that he did not part with. They gave a man self-respect. Not ostentation but quality, and the love that cherished the quality. Possessions reminded him that he existed, and made him enjoy his existence. It was as simple as that. And wasn't that worth something? He existed. Not many people in the world knew how to, even if they had the money. It really didn't take money, masses of money, it took a certain security."

“He remembered that right after that, he had stolen a loaf of bread from a delicatessen counter and had taken it home and devoured it, feeling that the world owed a loaf of bread to him, and more.”

“If you wanted to be cheerful, or melancholic, or wistful , or thoughtful, or courteous, you simply had to act those things with every gesture.”

In addition to this wonderful character, Patricia Highsmith's skills as a writer are to be highlighted. Tom's joy about the anticipation of having his dreams come true and his apprehension about the possibility of such dreams being shattered are a delight to read. I could not help siding with him the entire time, despite the fact that he is anything but a role model.

I do have an issue with the credibility of the plot at times. Perhaps, the guilibility of the characters in this novel reflects that of people's at a certain place and time - rich Americans and the Italian police of 1955 Italy - but sometimes the plot surpasses the line of reality and reason. In addition, I wish that Dickie and Marge had been developed a bit more in depth, considering the important role they play in justifying some of Tom's actions, because Tom's attitude towards them can seem gratuitous.

Despite these minor flaws, this is one of my favorite novels by the talented Ms. Highsmith, who is also one of my favorite writers.
51 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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Studio Sano
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in Italy on May 16, 2024
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Un thriller degli anni '50 ancora attualissimo. Avvincente e magnetico, davvero un romanzo fantastico
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Joachim
5.0 out of 5 stars Twisting story
Reviewed in Germany on April 23, 2024
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Good and entertaining read
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sandeepa
5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly a pirated copy
Reviewed in India on September 18, 2023
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I am around 40 pages into the book and that is very fast for me. Beyond this I need not comment on the classic.
The copy I received has poor quality paper. The cover feels like wrapping paper with ink coming off from words at many places. Possibly a pirates copy. Didn't return because it cam at a good discount and I needed to start reading immediately.
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sandeepa
5.0 out of 5 stars Possibly a pirated copy
Reviewed in India on September 18, 2023
I am around 40 pages into the book and that is very fast for me. Beyond this I need not comment on the classic.
The copy I received has poor quality paper. The cover feels like wrapping paper with ink coming off from words at many places. Possibly a pirates copy. Didn't return because it cam at a good discount and I needed to start reading immediately.
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R. Marie
5.0 out of 5 stars Très bonne intrigue
Reviewed in France on February 11, 2023
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Après avoir vue le film il y a quelques années j'étais curieuse de lire le lire. Il faut oublier le film car le livre n'est pas tout a fait le même . J'ai quand même beaucoup apprécié le livre. Cela me donne envie de lire le reste de la série.
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Everton Gomes dos Santos
5.0 out of 5 stars Delicioso
Reviewed in Brazil on January 7, 2020
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Um livro intrigante. Com uma história surpreendente. Rápido e bem divertido!
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